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1 - Music and Mathematics in an Interconnected Web of Cosmic Relations

from Part I - Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2024

Mohammad Sadegh Ansari
Mohammad Sadegh Ansari
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Geneseo
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Summary

Chapter 1 will examine the ontological and epistemological questions surrounding music in the knowledge system of the medieval Islamic world by exploring the philosophical system of Ibn Sina and his later followers, all of whose works laid the foundations for scholars of music in the centuries to come. In particular, I will address how mathematics was conceptualized vis-à-vis the cosmology of the falsafa tradition as the discipline that examined the existents whose existence was dependent on physical matter but could be conceptualized without the said matter. Through this conceptualization of music and mathematics, scholars of music were able to broaden their subject matter to cover topics from the melodic modes in vogue in their time to the poetics of music. At the same time, since everything in the universe was connected to one another, music was linked with many other scientific disciplines such as astronomy and medicine.

Keywords

Ibn Sinaal-FarabimusicmathematicsmedievalIslamic worldcosmologyclassification of sciences
Type
Chapter
Information
The Science of Music
Knowledge Production in Medieval Baghdad and Beyond
 , pp. 27 - 47
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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